A Free-Market Energy Blog

Four Reasons Alarmists Are Wrong on Climate Change

By Vijay Jayaraj -- April 26, 2018

The alarmists’ attitude towards climate change will prove more harmful than beneficial in the long run.

Earth Day this year focused officially on the need to reduce plastic litter, a worthy and achievable goal. Nonetheless, much Earth Day activity concentrated on the alleged need to save the planet from climate change.

Climate-change alarmists have long called the current warming period “unprecedented” and “dangerous.” But is it?

Ironically, this Earth Day fell in the midst of one of the coldest Aprils in North American history. The severe winter of 2017–2018 has raised debates from two contrasting ends.

While some uninformed people claim it disproves global warming, climate alarmists claim it is just another evidence for global warming.

Deniers, Alarmists and Skeptics

Actual climate-change deniers—and they are very few—categorically deny the warming trend. On the other end of the spectrum are climate-change alarmists, who claim that the current warming trend is catastrophic and driven almost exclusively by emission of carbon dioxide from human activities, especially industrialization.

Skeptics Are Not Deniers

Scientific progress depends on the freedom to challenge existing hypotheses. Surprisingly, though, anyone who disagrees with climate-change alarmists is branded a “denier.”

Real climate-change deniers should be called out. They are as dangerous as climate-change alarmists, who impede scientific advancement and lead the masses into believing extreme theories using scare tactics.

Global warming is real. Scientists disagree only on its magnitude and causes and how we should respond to it.

Four major temperature data sets are available to us: historical data inferred from proxy temperature measurements (primarily tree-rings and ice cores), global mean surface temperature data from thermometers (measured since the 1880s), radiosonde (weather balloon) temperature measurements (first used in 1896 but not common until the 1950s), and temperature data gathered by satellites (since the 1970s).

Temperature measurements from these sources indicate that the earth has, with fluctuations, generally been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age (roughly 1350–1850).

Skeptics differ from alarmists on the primary cause for this warming (a subject to which I’ll return below), its magnitude, the supposed dangers it might bring, and how to respond.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide are one of many causes are of global warming, but they’re not the primary driver.

Climate data from the past contradict the alarmist’s claims that carbon dioxide emissions from human activity have been the primary drivers of global temperatures.

During those periods, carbon dioxide emissions from human activity were negligible compared to today’s levels. It follows that warming of the magnitude of the last 150 years or more can happen with or without human contribution.

Further, no conclusive evidence shows that the current warming has been exaggerated by human emissions.

This was more recently confirmed by hundreds of scientific papers that attribute the recent warming to natural causes and affirm that there is nothing abnormal with the climate.

Record highs don’t prove extreme global warming.

An increasing number of record highs does not prove or disprove catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. They are merely changes in temperature within a larger climatic period.

It’s no surprise that local record highs become more common during a warming period. The mercury has been rising since the end of the Little Ice Age, so it is nearly inevitable that new records will be set each year. The records are indeed one evidence of warming, but they’re no evidence of its cause.

More importantly, the record highs apply only to the modern measurement era, after widespread temperature measurements began in the 1870s for much of the developed world and not until the mid-1900s for much of the rest of the world. They don’t include the similar phases of steep temperature increases that would have occurred during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period.

The alarmists’ attitude towards climate change will prove more harmful than beneficial in the long run. Insofar as they prevail, we will become more and more unprepared to face any climatic condition that is contrary to their dubious theories of unprecedented warming.

28 Comments

Do you really believe that Russian temperature records from, say, 1917-1950 are reliable?

You don’t really expect a sentient, rational person to believe that people were making accurate daily observations all over Russia during the Revolution or the Civil War or during the Sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad?

Do you honestly believe that Chinese temperature records from, say, 1913-1980 are reliable?

Do you really expect anybody to believe that accurate daily temperatures were recorded in China during the Revolution or “The Great Leap Forward?”

Do you seriously believe that Sub-Saharan African temperatures from, say 1850-1975 are accurate?

Please don’t tell us you think accurate daily temperature recordings were made in Sub-Saharan Africa during any part of the 19th century and most of the 20th.

Do you really believe that oceanic temperatures from, say 1800-1970 are accurate? ( as we know, the oceans cover 70% of the earth’s surface).

Do you really believe there were accurate daily temperature observations made in the Bering Sea or the Weddell Sea or in the middle of the Pacific at any time before the advent of satellite observations in 1979?

Are you kidding me?

All this is even prior to considering the GISS homogenization adjustments or the adjustments made for the UHI effect.

These are measurement error and uncertainties in excess of the putative change in global temperatures.

The truth of the matter is that climate “science” really doesn’t know whether there has been statistically significant global warming or not.

And many skeptics contend that the USA temperature measurements from the ’30s are actually a better gauge of global temps than the sparse & less reliable global measurements from the time. True, there’s wide agreement that we’ve warmed since the Little Ice Age ended, but if we’re cooler now than the 1930s I don’t see how one can conclude we’re in a warming trend.

And there’s no reason to just give that point away to the liberals. Argue with them about whether we’re warming, because I don’t think we are. Or if so it’s so minimal it’s barely distinguishable from noise.

You say “Actual climate-change deniers—and they are very few—categorically deny the warming trend.”

I’m not so sure.

If you manage to raise the issue with many academic physicists you will find they don’t want to discuss the topic UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

There is a good chance that many of them think either you can’t forecast the weather or climate (ask a mathematician) or that the Greenhouse Effect (GHE) Theory can’t be explained by the laws of thermodynamics – and is therefore wrong.

Of course it doesn’t help the GHE cannot be demonstrated in a lab, and no other instances of it exist in the real world – where you would expect many.

The majority of non-involved academic scientists see it as a unwinnable political issue – so why would they put their careers at risk for a fight which they think will come to an end by other means anyway?

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Using 18 years (as opposed to a round number like 10, 15, 20, etc) is immediately suspicious. The fact is that the 18 year period was selected to have a particularly warm first few years to offset the rest of the years, so that the temperature trend line was not increasing over the study period. Terrible statistics (or great statistics if you’re trying to deny climate change).

Here’s a website from a somewhat reputable organization (NASA) with graphs using a bit longer period (1800 to now) clearly showing a warming trend: